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Ring-Tone Royalties
Bonker writes: "I shook my head sadly when I saw this article on Techweb. It's about a company in the U.K. called Envisional, who monitors intellectual property violations. It seems that they believe that each Ringtone download is worth 7.5 c. The 'monitoring startup calls the downloading of musical ring tones "another Napster in the making" and says the industry may be losing more than $1 million a day in related royalties.' Sad sad sad." If it was April Fool's this would go down much easier.
BUt its true and you know it.
If 10000000 people get something for free, then how can you know that the demand would be the same for $20, or $100?
its like saying , hey we sold 12000 copies at $39.95, but if we sold these CDs for $100each we could have made more money, thus did they really LOOSE, 7200000, or gain 479400. Im sure the tax man would tell you to fuck off, if you told him you made a loss of selling software fore $39.95 and said you made a loss of 7.2M$ because you could have sold it at $100each.
The BSA is full of shit.
In the UK press there are hundreds of ads for absurdly expensive "services" "selling" ringtones of chart songs at £1 a time. I suspect they are not run by the sorts of people who regularly 'fess up to the PRS (Publishing Rights Society). I've never owned a mobile, but if I did (and had the bad taste to want to draw attention to myself with the latest from Destiny's Child bleeping out from my crotch) I'd rather my £1 went to Beyonce than some dodgy geezer in a lock-up in the East End of London.
Correct! We run a ringtone site here in the UK, and 10% of everything we make goes to the MCPS http://www.mcps.co.uk/, the Mechancial Copyright Protection Society. Just like the PRS protects the performance of a work, the MCPS protects the composer of a work, the composer being a much more appropriate recipient of the royalties.
I don't know wether I'm for or against this; one part of me (the bit that wants to be a millionaire;) says no but I can see the MCPSs point.
We're employing professional musicians to recode the essence/melody of popular (i.e. well known) tunes in to MIDI files. Sometimes this works really well and other times it comes out sounding awful, but bearing in mind the process I'd still say it's "music".
Every now and then somebody with a midi capable phone asks 'Can I convert a .wav/mp3 to midi?' on comp/alt.music.midi. There is software to do it, but your mileage may vary. After somebody asked this on /. some time ago I started writing a package, WaveGoodbye, available here, but this is designed for polyphonic conversion which phones cannot handle (yet). This is now the most capable of the free wav->midi conversion programs, and can rival the commercial packages at piano music conversion. The version 1, Windows only, binary is freely available and version 2 is currently under development. I am considering releasing the source for this and taking it cross platform. Any Kylix developers out there interested? The alt.music.midi faq (linked from the above link, unless it has moved again) contains a list of poly- and mono-phonic conversion programs. Polyphonic conversion is very difficult and still a topic of research in many university media groups. Monophonic conversion is easier and these programs are generally more accurate.
This sig is a figment of your imagination.
A ring tone doesn't use the original recording (yet). If it's just performing the song, then only the song's publishers and writers should be concerned, not the record companies. Keep your evil money-grubbing industries straight, you analysts and writers!
Coppin said record labels are entitled to 7.5 cents for each download of a ring tone that uses copyrighted material....
Um, NO. The recording industry trades in music recordings, not music compositions. If I was to purchase the sheet music for the Brandenburg concerto and put an excerpt on a mobile phone, I owe the recording industry NOTHING. Same happens if I was to purchase sheet music for "Hey Jude" by Paul McCartney, or something else recent. The only person to whom I would owe money is the composer. The recording industry cannot claim royalties from anyone for making their own performances from the original, legally-purchased sheet music.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
You still pay royalties on a "reinterpretation" of a song. I've performed a cover on each of my last two albums, and in both cases my record label paid about 7 cents per CD manufactured in royalties to the publisher of the song.
The law establishes what's called a "compulsory mechanical license", essentially saying to the owner of publishing rights on the song "yes, you own the rights, but if someone wants to cover your song, you MUST grant them that right so long as they pay the current per-use royalty rate."
You can check out more info at:
- http://www.nmpa.org/hfa/mechanical.html
-Ed http://www.funkatron.comI mean as far as ring tones go, it's much easier to manually duplicate a series of tones.
It's not quite the same as the issue of a full blown song and trying to replicate that from scratch, or is it? If it is copyright infringement to download a ring tone, is it also copyright infringement to display a list of numbers to press and save that will "sound just like" a popular song? Additionally, would it also be copyright infringement for me to attempt to duplicate a song without directions, merely pressing keys to a song in my head that I know exists?
I assume this will happen in more countries and I assume it already happened in the UK.
Hooked on
This is just another step. Lawyers will keep trying to clamp down on intellectual property until we finally say "ENOUGH". Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should go out and pilfer every piece of IP that isn't secured (and even try to get the ones that are). But, at some point, Joe Sixpack will realize how insanely stupid it is for him to pay $0.076 for a tune on his Nokia phone. One that may or may not be copyrighted or may not even really resemble the original song. He'll then start wondering why CDs have never come down in price and why the artist (who we only want to protect, remember?) gets so very little. Then he'll wonder why he can't play his new "enhanced" music media in the car AND at home. Then he'll wonder why he spends so much money on IP in the first place.
Yes, it's fun to have a unique ring on my phone (mine happens to play Europe's Final Countdown). I wouldn't pay extra for the benefit. I coded mine from some very old sheet music I had laying around. I don't know if that's copyright infringement, but I do know I could play it on my keyboard in 1987, and I could even program my keyboard to play it ad infinitum if I so chose. I don't see the difference between it and my phone. If anything, the phone is lesser quality.
At any rate, back to the original conversation. The record labels are shooting themselves in the foot. Even Wal-Mart figured out that to get people in the door, you've got give a little bit away. They can lock down every musical format they want, make it where it's not usable any more, and guess what? Their customer base will die out. I'm quite sure they'll just blame it on piracy though, like they always do.
I'm just waiting patiently for the day the pendulum starts swinging back the other way. More and more people are getting appalled by the increased prices, restricted uses, and gestapo tactics. When they finally get this phone thing locked down, I'm sure it'll be about as useful as www.lyrics.ch.
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He only wants you to contact him so he can then sue you for patent infringement - you must infringe the patent to contact him. Beware!
For all the people talking about public domain... take a look at: http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm. Basically there are different periods when different songs come into the public domain... just look at the chart for the info.
For those talking about Fair Use, we can basically say that Fair Use is a decorative law... basically it does nothing but offer guidelines... it doesn't say anything concrete.. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html. Take a look, you can read it... it's just pretty much fluff.
And then we come to the RIAA site (http://www.riaa.com/Copyright-Laws-2.cfm)... although very biased on the topic, you can see their position in the following quote.
The general rule for teachers and students is that you can use 10% of a song, but not more than 30 seconds... but as the RIAA page states... even value can be derived from a three second clip. So basically, if the people try and fight the music companies on this one... they are taking a big gamble... because "value" is what it all comes down to... nothing in the fair use law gaurantees anything for them.Steve
I see a lot of people here jumpning up and down like this is a big nasty thing. It's not.
Using something like this should be covered under fair use. Let face it, 5 or 6 notes of the latest boy band crud comming out of you cell phone isn't going to cause record companies any grief, if you programmed it in yourself. I doubt that even if you had a site that gave the little tunes you programmed away for free they would care. The problem comes up when somebody starts selling these little clips to other people. That's not fair use, that's generating profit from someone else's trademark. That's why record companies are going to get pissed.
The issue the article brings up is that people are selling these things and not giving artists, composers or publishers their cut of the revenue. I have a hard time thinking that it's a fair use situation.
Ok, if your cell phone is playing a full 3 minute pop song every time someone calls, you probably are violating copyrights (as well as risking justifiable homicide).
But if your phone is playing a 3-second clip from a song (never mind if that song is 200+ years old and the copyright has long since expired, like Beethoven's Fifth or something), that really seems like it should fall under the doctrine of fair use. Where do you draw the line? Is it a violation of fair use if I hum a few bars of a song? I don't think so.
But anything to get their greedy little paws on more cash, I guess...
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
Maybe this isn't such a bad thing after all... if I don't hear another monotone version of "Hit me baby one more time" I may just be able to hold off from hitting some 15 year old teenie bopper "one more time".
-ct
--
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
> It's the use of the major melodic theme of a piece of music without paying for it.
Bullshit. Last time I checked, fair use encompasses the reproduction of small portions of a copyrighted work in both derivative works and for various other reasons, including the ever-popular "just because I want to as long as it's *personal* use." For example, I am entitled to go to the library and jot down a few paragraphs from any given book. If I keep that paper with a few phrases on it in my pocket, is that a violation of copyright? No. If I show that piece of paper to people occasionally, is that violation of copyright? No. That is fair use, and is entirely personal. Now, if I were to start photocopying that piece of paper with those paragraphs on it, and handing out copies to everyone...then it starts to fall into copyright violation, even though it's just a few paragraphs, because I'm distributing it and it is obviously not a personal use.
This ring-tone nonsense is identical, only with sounds. Anyone is entitled under fair use to copy the few tones of the phrase "hit me baby one more time" for personal use, just as I am free to copy sentences out of a book and keep them in my pocket. Keeping those few musical notes on my cell-phone is the musical equivalent. It is a personal use. I am only using a very small portion of the copyrighted work. I am not distributing copies of it, it is onjly heard on my own phone when it rings. It can be heard by other people, just as I would be free to show my piece of paper with a few sentences from a book to people without violating copyright. It is a fair and personal noncommercial use of a small excerpt. Now, if I were to charge people to listen to my phone playing such musical notes, that would be a violation. If I were to make copies of the ring-tone and distribute them, then I would possibly be liable for copyright infringement--maybe, there are still arguments to be made either way. But just taking a few bars of music and programming them into my cellphone is NOT copyright infringement, it is a valid fair use.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
My phone is usually silent, but vibrates ;-)
when call comes in. Whan idustry
is losing money here? (I would not rather guess).
If only I had copyrighted "brrrriing, brrrriing" when I had the chance.
--
47% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
perhaps his estate gets some cash whenever someone has their phone on silent or vibrate?
Wait a second...
"Envisional Ltd., which sells software and services for monitoring intellectual-property rights violations online... decided to pursue the ring-tone research on its own."
Well, it's obvious then. Envisional Ltd. is a company that does very little at all, if anything. They 'monitor intellectual-property rights violations'? They'd be more aptly labled 'master serach engine operators'.
Isn't it obvious that this kind of controversial announcement, with no industry backing whatsoever, is simply an effort to gain public attention and therefore clients?
"...cell phone usage is pervasive enough that users are looking for ways to distinguish their cell phones' rings from others."
Funny, I usually have no trouble distinguishing my phone from the others _because it's in my own fucking pocket_!
Just how retarded do they think the users are?
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and says the industry may be losing more than $1 million a day in related royalties
Yeah, and Ed McMahon and Publisher's Clearing House say I may have already won $10 million, but do you think I'm ever going to see a dime of it?
Its only lost royalties if they would have gotten them in the first place.
NO CARRIER
Two stories in a row with comments along the lines of "This isn't an April Fools Joke"...April was last month. I'm confused
So perhaps a more appropriate comment would be "Mayday! Mayday!"? After all, this is May day (May 1).
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Am I the only Slashdotter who is sick and tired of losing 9000 karma points every time they moderate?
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Fair use depends upon exactly what it says; the use. If my business model is to take the week's top 40, then to convert them into ringtone format, then to place advertisements in the newspapers inviting people to dial a premium rate phone number in order to download the ringtone tune, then it seems pretty obvious to me that I am making money out of someone else's copyrighted work and ought to pay the royalty. Guess what -- that's exactly the business model discussed in this story, and the vast majority of these ringtone operations in fact *do* pay royalties to the Performing Rights Society. There are presumably a few cowboys who don't.
On reflection, I think that on this occasion it's likely to be differences between US mobile phone technology and the rest of the world rather than widespread ignorance of copyright which is responsible for the toxic level of cluelessness in this slashdot thread. Happy to help to clear up this misunderstanding.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
That's right: millions, if not billions, are being lost because I'm able to play a CD in my car radio when I may have unauthorized, unpaying, passengers in there with me. The auto industry (as well as the car stereo industry) are complicit in this massive conspiracy of intellectual property theft.
And don't get me started on "Boom Boxes" that can quickly turn a whole backyard of people into a group of criminal anti-capitalistic pirates.
So now a ringtone is a derivative work of a full piece of music, and all the work in encoding the music is irrelevant because it's derivative?
I can understand that.. but surely that means that a full piece of music can be a derivative of a ringtone. After all, you can just take the ringtone as the melody and add lyrics and orchestration, but that's irrelevant - it's still derivative. (I always thought that "having the potential to be a derivative work" was pretty much strictly commutative (*being* one isn't because it depends on which one was (c)'d first).)
Also, ringtones don't take up much space. And they have a limited range of values...
Anyone for a distributed.net style project to enumerate all possible ringtones? By their logic we'd also enumerate all possible music, so all music produced would be derivative of something in the ringtone space. Then GPL the ringtone archive..
The RIAA is lobbying for legislation mandating the deployment of "secure showers" -- if the user hums an unlicensed song during a shower, it switchs from water to sulphuric acid.
That's nothing!!
My band of lawyers have been working with several key record labels in order to go after people who sing along with the radio, music video, mp3 and "I can't get it out of my head" songs. We figure that the record companies are losing 5 Kabillion USD per day to people enjoying others sing their favorite tunes...not to mention least favorite. This will include humming as well as not knowing the correct words, but having the melody correct.
IBM is already working on a system to track such offenders as they sing a long. The combination of facial and voice recognition will uniquely identify you and the song, so that record companies will be able to immediately draft your personalized lawsuit as soon as you utter the first few notes of the tune!
Look for your lawsuit in the mail soon!
I know it's only Rock-n-Roll,
but I like it, like it
Yes I do!
-dman7
Blarf.
This one falls squarely under fair use as you are at the most using just a few seconds on the song not the entire song. Now if the recording industry wishes to create specific ring tones then they would have a rightful ownership of the ring tone.
:P
I for one am waiting for the inevitable backlash that will make corporations, evil empires, bad laws, and politicians turn and run. I for one will welcome it when it does come.
The copyright system started out as a way to encourage production of intellectual property by making sure the person or people who "Created" it were paid for their creation. The recording industry is a promotional system and not a content creator. In plain, English the RIAA is a leech on the musical creation system. They exist to make themselves the most money possible screw the consumer and screw the artist.
--
When I'm good I'm very good, when I'm bad I'm better, But when I'm evil you better run
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
at least then I won't hear the fucking top 40 coming through tinny little monophonic speakers...
I think we need to upgrade phones to have full midi capability.....
Then worry about ring tone copyright
----- One piece short of Legoland
And your counter argument iiiiiiiis?
Incidentally, I notice that Merriam-Webster has (genuinely) added this to their definition of piracy:
So we can no longer claim accurately that "software piracy" is a misnomer because the owner isn't deprived of property. Theft however still requires deprivation of an object, so I'm a pirate, but not a thief. Hurrah.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I can not believe that time is wasted with this sort of thing. Someone actually wasted the time to fester about who gets the proceeds and royalties for the cacophonous blips that emanate from a cellphone.
This sort of continual ranting and raving about who own what makes people like me, and most of the "little people" populace want to go out and steal everything in sight. At least I do. Its cathartic to think that my actions may in some way violate some injunction a bastard lawyer crafted.
This is the beginning of the end in the way of copyright law abuse. To think, some day, this horrible lawyer type will look at his kid sticking his quarters into a playschool wind up music box to hear the music so the record labels run by people formerly known as humans can glom a royalty.
I like to see audiophiles stashing away thousands of SHN files - they make nice MP3s and music CDs. The over-regulation of music is like the banning of sex and drugs, didn't work to well, and it wont for the rock and roll either. Just like prohibition created the mafia, this kind of crap just promotes boot legging.
I hope that people can stop focusing on what they are losing and start adding value to things. Try a CD with some words printed on it or some lyrics. And I wont be wasting airtime trying to quip clips of copyrighted music on a device which currently has no mass storage.
Legalize the constitution. Think for yourself question authority.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the actual timbre and dynamics of the individual notes in a ring tone are identical. So if there are twelve tones in a octave, and we count the insertion of rests, there are finitely many possible combinations of notes and spaces, seeing as the notes themselves are undifferentiated in any aspect but pitch and duration. And, compared to the total number of combinations of possible sounds (which for all intents and purposes is infinite), this number is rather small. Seen in this light, the argument that some of these are protected works of creativity, capable of being--nay, supposed to be--charged for seems absolutely absurd! Ring tones are lifeless blips and bleeps, despicable apings of real music. Every time I hear Fur Elise monotonously oscillated out of a purse or a pocket I feal like Alex in A Clockwork Orange, strapped down with shunts in my eyes screaming "Its a sin!-using Beethoven like that!" And they have the gall to want to charge us for it. Not Beethoven of course, he's been dead too long for them to wrench any money from his carcass, but probably something worse. moc.nogatnep-eht@umhecbaa